NURS 205 Transition to Professional Nursing Practice

Practicum in MSN in Management and Leadership (Practicum field in ICU\CCU.

What are your professional aims? How can you apply what you have learned in your coursework to your practicum setting? How will you leverage your experiences in the practicum to facilitate your development as a nurse leader-manager?

MSN (Master of Science in Nursing) practicum provides guided experience that is pertinent to the health or nursing care management that align with my area of nursing leadership to facilitate my development as a nurse leader-manager (Sørensen, Delmar & Pedersen, 2011). For the professional development, it is important to develop professional development objectives for the achievement and evaluate them through the experiences in the practicum. After the MSN completion, I aspire to become a nurse leader-manager and take up the role of nursing leadership. There are many challenges that I will likely to encounter during my transition to this new role. I believe that among the leadership roles in the healthcare system, a nurse leader manager has a direct impact on the quality of care and service that is delivered to the patients and their families throughout the healthcare experience. For a nurse leader-manager, I have to be accountable for the management and leading the medical staff who are responsible for providing patient care. Moreover, quality and safety issues are also linked along with management of healthcare workforce to create a successful future as a nurse leader-manager. MSN program provide the experience and knowledge that help to advance the competencies needed to move to the nursing leadership position (Wilkinson, Nutley & Davies, 2011).

The first professional development objective is to achieve critical thinking skills for the evaluation and management of the healthcare business unit. There is a need to manage quality and safety issues, clinical issues and rostering, occupational health and safety issues, organizational behavioural and conflict resolution that demands critical leadership and problem-solving skills. Critical thinking skill is important as it helps to engage creatively in rational inquiry using current research and nursing processes to improve the healthcare outcomes (). To achieve it, it is important for me to recognize the problems and raise questions for critical evaluation of the management issues. For this, I have to gather evidence that supports the solutions and answers and evaluation of alternative solutions for the best health outcomes. I will try to demonstrate open-mindedness and tolerance for others’ views. Initially, I experienced that I was judgmental and unwelcoming towards others’ views. Gradually, I started seeking out for the truth and investigation of the situation or problem in an active manner. I started questioning myself and looked for areas of improvement where I lacked knowledge. I will reflect on my own thinking process, indulge in intellectual curiosity, and look for mentor to be lifelong learner. These steps could help me to achieve my objective of critical thinking as a nurse-leader manager to manage organizational issues as outlined by Alfaro-LeFevre, (2015), transforming from novice to expert.

My second objective is responsive leadership communication that is considered the key to leadership success. Few months ago, I was attending a lecture on communication and it struck me that effective responsive communication is a critical part of the nursing management process. For the successful nursing leadership management, it is important to build loyalty and apply responsiveness in the leadership and management arena. This objective is important in leadership nursing to be capable leaders in leading the interdisciplinary healthcare teams and ward units. Effective communication in a clear and logical manner plays a pivotal role for the professional delivery. There is relationship between leadership and effective communication that affect the quality of care and ensure patient safety. Good communication with members of healthcare team is vital as it measures the teamwork, collaborative care, job satisfaction with positive organizational outcomes (Day & Brownie, 2014). This also enhances the quality of care, as there is collaborative care where the healthcare professionals work as one team, share responsibilities in the decision-making process, cooperates and in coordination of care.

Previously, I lacked effective communication skills to interact with others and understand others’ perspective. I was unable to interact with my fellows and failed to take an active part in the organizational decision-making. Gradually, I realized that to achieve the competency of responsive leadership communication in MSN program to be a nurse leader-manager, I have to develop effective interpersonal communication skills with my colleagues and management. For this, I will discuss with staffs and peers for the honest information and feedback to know about their concerned issues. I will try to be receptive towards the negative and positive feedback and make people comfortable to discuss their concerns and complaints demonstrating follow-ups. Active listening skills and receptive body language with empathy helps to convey that a person is sincere, patient and willing to help (Finkelman, 2015). Therefore, by following these steps, I would be able to develop my objective of responsive leadership communication as a nurse leader-manager.

References

Alfaro-LeFevre, R. (2015). Critical Thinking, Clinical Reasoning, and Clinical Judgment E-Book: A Practical Approach. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Day, G. E., & Brownie, S. (2014). Rising to the challenge: Nursing leadership via nurse-led service provision for chronic disease management and prevention. Nursing and Health, 2(2), 30-34.

Finkelman, A. (2015). Leadership and Management in Nursing: Core Competencies for Quality Care. Pearson.

Sørensen, E. E., Delmar, C., & Pedersen, B. D. (2011). Leading nurses in dire straits: head nurses’ navigation between nursing and leadership roles. Journal of nursing management, 19(4), 421-430.

Wilkinson, J. E., Nutley, S. M., & Davies, H. T. (2011). An exploration of the roles of nurse managers in evidence?based practice implementation. Worldviews on Evidence?Based Nursing, 8(4), 236-246.